Funny Ha Ha Director Andrew Bujalski on Making Ends Meet

How does a leading mumblecore director pay the bills? Andrew Bujalski, the 31-year-old creator of Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation, seemed destined for the big time in 2007, when it was announced that he would adapt Benjamin Kunkel’s novel Indecision for producer Scott Rudin. Two years later, Indecision remains incomplete — but luckily, as Bujalski explained to us in a conversation at the South by Southwest Film Festival, “the money from it lasted two years.” Bujalski wrote several drafts of the script, and was well paid for his time.

Bujalski is now unsure if the feature, which he was slated to both write and direct, will ever come to fruition. But, “I’m not going to wait around for this movie to get made,” he said. “I have other ideas.” At SXSW, Bujalski is screening his third feature, Beeswax, a characteristically non-climactic drama that has yet to find distribution. The filmmaker says he has a handful of other projects in mind, including some that involve digital video — a first for Bujalski, whose previous works use 16mm film. Rumor also has it that he has been discussing another project that he’ll write and direct for Rudin. At least he knows Rudin’s good for the money.